Mapping China: Music - New Media: Social Media

As in the rest of the world, Facebook is dominant in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It is banned in the PRC. Official websites of companies and artists are relatively unimportant in China. In the absence of platforms fully dedicated to music, the following mainstream social networking sites and apps are the most popular ways for fans to interact with artists. Anyone preparing to enter the Chinese market should at least be present on the first two:

• Wechat. 600 million active users. A mobile messaging app comparable to Whatsapp, but with Facebook-like features such as moments (a wall public to all contacts) and official accounts (publicly visible), and also e-retailing and e-financing features. Wechat is owned by Tencent, which also owns QQ (829 million active monthly users) and QZone (644 million active monthly users), two desktop-oriented platforms.
• Sina Weibo. Around 500 million active monthly users. A social networking and microblogging site combining features of Twitter and Facebook. So called BigV’s have amassed huge amounts of followers and can instantly make or break songs (including so called shenqu ‘divine songs’ or ‘silly internet songs’ similar to Gangnam Style).
• RenRen. 214 million active monthly users. A copycat of Facebook that is struggling to catch up in the mobile era.
• Douban. Around 200 million active monthly users. A review website popular with ‘cultural youths’ and hipsters, that so far hasn’t monetized its platform as successfully as Sina or Tencent. It’s features includes (1) synopsis and ratings of all books, films and albums, but no download links (2) China’s most comprehensive events calendar, including a ticketing service (3) Douban Station, where (upcoming) bands can upload their music and promote their events (4) a radio station sampling the music uploaded by bands at their stations (5) by 2015 also a record company Dforce publishing albums of the more popular artists on their platform (6) interactive BBS features such as responding to all of the above (reviewing albums, going to shows) and the possibility to create interest groups around music genres, locations and so on.

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